Harlem Bespoke: New York City has not had a great record of maintaining a large portfolio of housing and in the past has apparently used propaganda to justify demolishing aging housing stock. Urban Renewal or Slum Clearance was the common moniker for the movement. The above advertising from the Library of Congress shows some of the posters used around the Depression era to convince citizens that old tenement buildings were the reason why crime and infant mortality rates were happening. New massive public housing projects would make everything better because they were modern, clean and had elevators within. Ironically enough, this did not solve any crime issues in the neighborhood and those miracle towers in the park have not aged so well over the decades.
HarlemBespoke.com 2020
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